Avada Kedavra
by Owls The Sailor
Summary: She raced into the house under the image of a snake protruding from a skull's maw blazed into the clouds casting a darkness in the hearts of all who saw it. Petunia felt her heart was the darkest. It was heavy with regret and frantically beating trepidation. /This is an AU where Petunia is a Death Eater, sorta an experimental idea, but I think it works.


**A/N:** Hey-o Owls here, this is my second story in like a week or something about Petunia, and that because now I'm obsessed. She is such a character that I connect with it terrifies me. Speaking of terrifying, this round of the QLFC is to communicate an emotion and mine was fear or to be afraid essential. I'm hesitant to mention it because that was the challenge to not mention the word, so I hope you get that emotion.

So back to Petunia stories so close together. First, I'm not as stubborn and conservative and annoying as Petunia (I think), but I connect to her on the sort of Forgotten sister level, which my Drabble, Sisters, is all about (you should check it out...) However, I'm no the forgotten imperfect sister in my family nor is this story about that. I really got inspired by a comment by a guest which is unfortunate about what it would be like to have Petunia as a witch. It basically had noting to do with my Drabble and I already had my story for this round written on paper (it was about Hedwig falling to her death). I got so into I couldn't write anything else, so here it is my AU with Petunia as a Death Eater which I think works. (*Haters gonna hate hate hate...)

Hoots,

Owls

P.S. This story is at 2,788 words which is the most I've written for the competition so far.

* * *

The darkened halls of the Ministry were full of whispering Death Eaters; the black and green tiles adding to the aesthetic the followers yearned for: power and fear.

Petunia, the Ravenclaw muggleborn, was moving swiftly through the main hall trying to find Peter. If what she had heard from the pyramidof gossipers in the Dark Lord's legion was right, she was going to pull a Avada on him faster then he could squeak. Then she would pull his would back from the place just before d

eath. His screaming writhing body would sink back into his body, just like her soul had sunk into the pits of despair.

It was clear she had been chosen by Voldemort for a good reason, not just the fact she knew valuable Death Eater information that could lead to the downfall of Voldemort himself. No, when Petunia had reason, she could be the most terrifying person in the world. If that reason happened to be her little sister, the person in question should personally go to Voldemort and ask for the nastiest death he could get—it was the easy route.

Peter Pettigrew just so happened to be meeting with Voldemort just then, but not to ask for a death he deserved than her vengeful wrath. Peter, a man who she considered a friend for the most part was finally getting up the guts he had been cowering in for years and telling the Dark Lord the few plans they had entrusted in him. "The pathetic rat," she muttered under her breathe.

Her black cloaked shoes clipped against the smooth tiles and moved with the traffic of hall. The atmosphere reminded her of the time she went to London. Her parents had taken them (her sister and she) to see a show; Cats, if she remembered correctly. Lily had been fascinated at her young age, but Petunia wasn't as impressed. She had never been a fan of smoke and curtains, so to speak, which made it ironic that she was a witch. It was a time, one of few, that she remembered being so happy before becoming a witch or rather realizing it.

She had always done things, like levitate forks or turn on and off lights without the switch moving at all, that were strange. No one had seemed to really notice the weird things she did except Severus Snape, the boy from down the way who had been Lily's playmate. She didn't like much him because he had made her feel as though she was peculiar with his stares. However, when Lily went to Hogwarts for the first time, Petunia saw Severus in the same year as her sister.

Lily and Severus grew apart due to him being a Slytherin in the wartimes, a horrible connotation, but Petunia grew closer to him because they both became Death Eaters at around the same time. She also managed to convince him to be a double agent for the Order of the Phoenix, through which they became the best of confidants.

"I really hope that wasn't directed at me," a familiar voice flittered into her ear. She took a quick glance to her side where a new body was moving at the same pace and confirmed that under the Death Eater mask it was Severus.

"You know very well that you are always a worm if I'm insulting you." She looked forward again finding a crowd was gathering near the news boards just as new papers came out, as usual. The crowd was mostly formed by people wishing to discuss what was occurring in the news. It was irritating but a part of the routine; those who messed with the routine were brought into questioning, something a double agent like she and Severus couldn't risk, even if they were trained in occlumency.

"So what has Peter done this time?" Severus was grinning a little, which was far from his usual expression. He had always been so closed off to the world when Lily abandoned him, but for some reason he sometimes was "fun" around Petunia. He left his insecurities around her, which was very dangerous. She wouldn't allow it.

Petunia sent him a stony glare, trying to keep frustrated tears from escaping. He was trying to make her seem happy again or at least indifferent like she normally was. It only made her realize she was acting unusually, and didn't want someone to figure them out. It was a very fragile time. Lily was at stake, and Dumbledore had put the Order of the Phoenix in high alert. Peter was the cause.

Over the past year or so, since the reading of a prophecy that had predicted Voldemort's demise, he had been on high alert for a child born at the end of July, like Lily's son, Harry. When Voldemort learned of this, he began questioning everyone for the location of her sister. She was the first to be brought in, luckily she had been taught enough occlumency to block him out and continue her lie of Lily hating her.

The Dark Lord had given her a look that forever sent shivers down her already rigid spine. His cold eyes had told her, she was on the edge of his trust, the edge that was death for her and everyone else who was involved. It had kept her on her toes and she was starting not to sleep due to the terror that haunted her dreams.

"This is no joking matter," She hissed, tense with anxiousness.

"What?" Severus clutched her arm at her arm, knowing she was just trying to move forward and find Peter. He was far too good at reading her emotions.

Petunia pushed past him and continued in the stream of bodies, sweat, blood, and fear. Severus was only slightly bigger than her; she wasn't afraid of him. She was afraid of the doors, large and black at the end of the hall. They were treated with a sort of reverence, being the the source of every Death Eaters fear and hope as well as every command from Voldemort.

"He has an audience with the Dark Lord," she told him. Petunia was fairly certain that he only heard the words 'Dark Lord' before he shot off and started towards the large doors at the end of the hall. He was causing people to stare by moving so quickly and out of the normal pace, which wasn't leisurely, but strict.

They reached the doors just as they opened and the greasy little rat exited. "You!" Severus pointed at Peter, who gulped and looked for a way out. Serverus pulled his wand out and cornered Peter. He knew, before Severus reached him, that he had done something so irreversible. The regret was evident in his beady eyes and sweaty, grease complexion.

"Severus." Petunia, having taken long strides instead of running, arrived a moment later and placed a hand on the taller man's arm. Severus lowered his wand, there was already green sparks forming at its tip his intent to Avada the rat made evident. "As impressive as your nonverbal spell is, it may be too impressive to kill a trusted servant of our Lord with it. We should take this some less conspicuous."

She reached into Severus's mind with her practiced legilimency, the counter of occlumency. His mind's walls were up as they always should be anywhere near Voldemort. He released part of his protection, as soon as he felt her probing, allowing her freedom over his innocent memories, mostly those of his childhood. She selected a memory of the old country road near their houses from when they were children.

Back in tangible world, Severus nodded, gripping Peter's arm fiercely before apparating. Petunia wiped the memory of all who could have heard and followed the pair.

Petunia arrived at the scene her black cloak swishing in the gentle wind of the summer night. She looked around and saw her friend and one of her enemies locked in a battle of cowering and towering. Severus was whispering threats that Petunia was almost happy to not hear, and Peter was one his knees his face kissing the earth. Petunia knew her friend had a lot of pent up anger for how Peter's friends treated such scum as he so well and treated Severus so poorly, though he did nothing wrong; that anger acted out instead of his worry for Lily. He didn't want her to die that night, but he also knew, just as Petunia did, that if Voldemort wished her dead there was nothing they could do expect die along with he. Tempting as death's eternity sounded, they did have other things to live for, though they were few.

"Severus, don't kill him, yet." Her voice was soft and clear against the gentle night, one that would normally be full of dinners in the backyard. The street was causing nostalgia to stumble into her stomach. It was right there where she was looking at Severus and Peter that Lily had said she loved her for the last time, two days ago.

She knocked Severus's wand out of his hand and held it hostage.

"Yeah, listen to her...please, don't kill me." Peter cowered even more if that was possible. In fact he seemed to be becoming part of the gravel, if that were possible without magic as his wand was lying cracked a few feet away.

"Don't talk; you're annoying me," Petunia sung, her voice strained with all the emotions of the night: her constant vilgalance, her worry, and her distaste for the pathetic excuse of a human being in front of her (and she had meet Voldemort face-to-face). "Now, what did you tell Voldemort." She pointed her wand at his neck the sparks of a Crucio beating against his flesh with satisfying snaps.

"You just told me not to..."

She raised a brow and glared, sending a small pulse of the spell into his body. "That's just a taste, sweetie," Petunia threatened with a tight lipped smile, not wanting the satisfaction of having to torture it out of him.

"I told him everything." She stumbled backwards and Peter scurried away with a scream that surely woke the neighbors. Petunia had unconsciously released her Crucio onto him, probably sending the pain of dangers through his bones into his breakable mind.

"Lily," she whispered. Severus had already turned on his heal and popped to another location when she looked towards where he had been standing.

"Pettigrew." Petunia's voice cut into the empty night, "I will kill you," she promised, as tears stung her cold eyes. She turned on her heal and found herself outside Godric's Hollow, her sister and husband's home, just as the first flash of an Avada's green light flicked in the window.

It sent a shock through her body, not knowing if Lily was dead or not. Petunia's body was racked with the shakes of dread and sadness. She couldn't do anything now. Voldemort would only kill her as well, and she hoped that she could still do some good. It was an uncertain hope that belonged to the naïve mind of a child that didn't know pain and to the mind of a grown women, who was almost dead inside.

Suddenly, a scream erupted from the second floor. "Lily," Petunia whispered, and every once of hope she had dropped into her stomach releasing a wave of worry. She removed her Death Eater mask and let the tears run freely, an act that was nearly foreign to her. She watched Snape running in slow motion towards the door. It had been brutally open; the metal scorched by magic, and the knob hanging loose.

There was a third flash of green. It was a surprise to Petunia, and she had to think of what else Voldemort could be killing. She didn't know what was happening—the uncertainty made her nervous. Could he be killing the cat, that Lily had gotten from James? Voldemort didn't care about pets so much to use an unforgivable curse on them like Avada Kedavra. Then she remembered their son and the prophecy. How could she have forgotten? She had been consumed with the fear of loosing her sister and the thought of killing Pettigrew that she had forgotten why anything was happening at all.

She raced into the house under the image snake protruding from a skull's maw blazed into the clouds casting a darkness in the hearts of all who saw it. Petunia felt her heart was the darkest. It was heavy with regret and franticly beating trepidation.

Turning from the stairs onto the second floor hallway, she found the body of James Potter outside the open door to the nursery where his son would normally be resting in the glow of the slowly setting moon. His glasses were cracked on the floor and his mouth ajar. There was a frozen look of shock and anger on his face. The famous Potter unruly hair, that had made Lily go crazy when they were much younger and she obsessed over things like that, was slicked with blood from hitting the edge of a table placed for decoration under a mirror.

Petunia looked at the reflective glass and saw her long brow hair braided into a bun. She let it down. If her hair were red and eyes a kind green instead of a sharp brown, then she would look like Lily would, if she were nearly five years older and didn't have the curves of a mother. Lily had barely grown up at all, really. Even if she was now a mother and wife, she was barely over twenty. Maybe, a year or two, but that didn't matter, not to Petunia. Not to Severus either.

She looked into the nursery. It was a sight she had never wanted to see, but had so much experience in causing ones like it. Lily was in Severus's arms. He cradled her with so much care, probably like he had wanted to when she was alive. The tears crawling down his face, landing on Lily's bloodied, scratched cheeks, were evidence of the love he always wanted to share. The wounds of her cheeks leaked little droplets of blood fell to ground like tears. Her lifeless body must have hit the sharp edges of broken furniture: the cracked ceiling fan, the plastic pieces of a baby's mobile, the metal of her son's cradle collapsed around him.

Petunia moved past Severus and Lily to the cradle. She moved pieces of ceiling that had fallen with the impact of such concentrated magic being performed there. Inside a little cocoon of disaster, the child's body was limp. She picked up the brown-haired baby with Lily's green eyes. He blinked at her slowly and cooed.

In shock, she nearly dropped the child. A realization dawned on her at the same time. "Severus, Voldemort never left."

The man didn't seem to hear her. "Severus," she repeated getting down on the floor next to him. "Where is Voldemort, and why is Harry alive?" She indicated the child who had James' unruly hair, which would probably make a girl swoon for him too.

Petunia didn't look at Severus holding her sister; instead, she pushed aside the baby's hair to clean his face a bit. The grim covering his was was not marred by clear streaks of tears, but by a lightning scar. The mystery of if made Petunia take in the scene again.

James was surrounded by scorch marks the signs of an Avada Kedavra curse. Lily was in a similar state, surrounded by scorch marks but seemingly unharmed by the curse expect for the fact that she was dead. Harry had been in the same situation, but he had a lightning scar and was alive.

Voldemort was nowhere in sight. He couldn't have apparated because the Potters had anti-apparate charms around their house. Voldemort didn't break those; Petunia knew he was more into theatrics than that, and he wouldn't need to break them on the way out because everyone was dead. But he was gone. There was no hole in the house; she would have heard if one was made. "So where did he go?" she wondered aloud to the baby in her arms, who had a tragic life already at the age of one.

"He's dead," Petunia muttered, looking at the child reaching up to grab at her long brown curls. As dead as Voldemort could be, she thought and touched the boy's lighting scar. "He'll come back for you." She kissed his head, and a new bout of worry hit her. The worry for this child who came into her life, giving it new purpose.


End file.
